


My Jolly Sailor Bold

by rightsidethru



Category: Elizabeth Hollows - Collected Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Challenge Accepted, F/F, I laughed, IN SPACE!, Possessive Behavior, Space Federation, Space Wives, Stars said that this was supposed to be gen, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 08:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11710356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightsidethru/pseuds/rightsidethru
Summary: Lady hovered over Lori’s weightless form, the ghost’s dress fanned out behind the spirit: tattered and in rags, bleached of all color, the ghost currently looked more dead than alive (as Lady sometimes did, though never for very long).Hello, Lori, the shade whispered soundlessly even as she reached down, fingertips easily slipping through Osprey’s suit’s life support helmet, curling around the fighter pilot’s cheek in an almost reverent touch.Sweet.“Hello again, Lady,” Lori murmured tiredly in answer. “Watch over me until someone comes by to pick me up?”Alwaysss…





	My Jolly Sailor Bold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [STARSdidathing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/STARSdidathing/gifts).



> Stars is now publishing original stories, and this is based off of the short story "The Lady Corsair," which is found in _Assorted Short Stories - Collection One_ (and can be purchased [here](https://www.amazon.com/Assorted-Short-Stories-Collection-1-ebook/dp/B071SJZMVS/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&dpID=51qR%2B%2BFhunL&dpPl=1&keywords=elizabeth%20hollows&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&qid=1500019040&ref=plSrch&ref_=mp_s_a_1_1&sr=8-1)). You can also keep track of Stars' new and upcoming original stories over [here](https://mykindoflovestories.tumblr.com/), as well!
> 
> The title is from [My Jolly Sailor Bold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqVnm16pK_8), which you'll recognize if you've watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Additionally, the song that's quoted throughout the text is "The Drowned Lover." More information about it can be found [here](http://www.contemplator.com/england/drownlov.html).
> 
> Not beta read, though I do hope that it's still an enjoyable read for you all. :D;;
> 
> (And hopefully this lives up to your expectations, Stars! ❤︎)

**My Jolly Sailor Bold**

****

No matter the fact that Fighter Pilot X2367 had had to eject many times before from her glider, aware that this should have been an old hat to her by now, there was still something… disconcerting… unnerving about the weightlessness of space. Gravity had no power here, not when the battle had taken place so far away from any large planetoids—there was no control over movements, no ability to brace oneself, to aim for a particular direction. 

Ejected pilots had no choice but to wait until pick-up (if their ship had won in the skirmish) and accept the fact that the only thing that they could do in the moment was to _live_ it.

That very pointed sense of helplessness was terrifying.

And it was no wonder that—no matter how certain glider pilots tried to claim otherwise—there was (sometimes) a preference to go down with the doomed glider than to eject themselves out into that sheer expanse of _nothingness_.

And so Lori floated through the great expanse of the still-unknown that was space: floated and waited for either the medical or the search and rescue pilots to finally come across her and pick her up. So, too, did the glider pilot attempt to relax—knowing that there _was_ nothing that she could do except to wait—and attempted to force her body to let go of the adrenaline, the stress, the tension that had accrued throughout the battle. It was over now, and Lori’s part in it was finished… for better or for worse.

Mind drifting as aimlessly as her suited-up body, a chilled touch to her cheek finally prompted Lori to open her eyes.

Lady hovered over Lori’s weightless form, the ghost’s dress fanned out behind the spirit: tattered and in rags, bleached of all color, the ghost currently looked more dead than alive (as Lady sometimes did, though never for very long). _Hello, Lori_ , the shade whispered soundlessly even as she reached down, fingertips easily slipping through Osprey’s suit’s life support helmet, curling around the fighter pilot’s cheek in an almost reverent touch. _Sweet._

“Hello again, Lady,” Lori murmured tiredly in answer. “Watch over me until someone comes by to pick me up?”

_Alwaysss…_

**

_As I was a walking down in Stokes Bay_  
_I met a drowned sailor on the beach as he lay_  
_And as I drew nigh him, it put me to a stand.,_  
_When I knew it was my own true Love_  
_By the marks on his hand._

Lori hadn’t always believed in ghost stories. In fact, for the longest time, the fighter pilot had been amongst those who staunchly claimed that ghosts—the supernatural—didn’t exist. There was always a scientific explanation for an event, even if that logical reason wasn’t immediately and readily available.

That all changed from the moment Lori had been ordered to the _Sangfroid_ ’s med bay after a mission that hadn’t gone as horribly as it could have—but also hadn’t gone as well as the Federation had hoped. A broken wrist was a small price to pay in getting away otherwise unscathed, but the fact that she had to go to the med bay at all was an overall displeasing errand that Lori would have otherwise been glad to avoid.

The nurse that was currently on shift was nice enough, happily chatting with the relatively newly minted glider pilot; she was good at distracted Lori from the pain in her wrist—and equally talented at making the other woman look away as the nurse puttered about with the bone regenerator.

It was during one of those times that Lori was looking away that her attention was caught by a flicker of something opalescent and bright, shimmering at the peripheral of her vision. Startled, Lori turned her head further away from the nurse—and came face-to-face with a ghost.

The shade was all washed-out colors except for how her dress suddenly bled crimson, matching the photograph of the nurse and a significant other proudly displayed on the exam room’s counter—and the vivid, mismatched colors of the spirit’s eyes. Lori’s own gaze widened in shock and fear, heartbeat a hummingbird’s thrum in her chest, and she opened her mouth to shout, to cry out, to scream, to do or say _something_ \--

The ghost leaned forward, then, silencing any and all of Lori’s words with the arctic chill of a shade-touched kiss.

 _Finally_ , a whisper threaded through Lori’s mind, the snarl of a storming sea underlying the too-soft words as lips continued to press against lips. _Found **you**._

**

_As he was a sailing from his own dear shore_  
_Where the waves and the billows so loudly do roar,_  
_I said to my true Love, I shall see you no more_  
_So farewell, my dearest, you're the lad I adore._

Four starships.

Despite the fact that fighter pilots tended to get shipped around from ship to ship, it was usually because their contracts ended with that particular ship’s captain—which meant that it was time for either their contract to be renewed or to begin one on a different ship and with another, new crew.

It was bad luck when a fighter pilot had been stationed on as many starships as Lori had been, especially when it was because of the fact that the previous ships had been destroyed by enemy action. It looked even worse when, each and every time, Lori somehow ended up being one of the very few crew members to survive: whether it was because she was on a mission when the fighting began or her glider had someone been overlooked during the actual battle… multiple reasons, all different and valid enough to ensure that those in command never looked _too_ closely at her record.

But four starships, all when her pilot career was still so new…?

In the end, it didn’t matter that Lori’s history never officially got investigated by those higher up in the Federation. Rumors and reputation still followed the pilot from ship to ship: the bad penny, some called her; space’s black cat was what others coined, eyes hard as they watched her board her third ship. (Less than three months there before the _Ondine_ , too, fell in battle. Perhaps the other fighter pilots had been correct in naming Lori such.)

“How’d you manage it? _Really_? ‘Cause, I mean…” one of the engineering crew on the _Corsair_ finally had the courage to ask the woman; the man had been steadily drinking during their offshore leave and, perhaps, it was only the alcohol that gave him the courage to actually say the words—but it was a question that many others wondered, too, and it showed when a bubble of silence began to spread out from their table. Lori could feel multiple gazes settling upon her as the hairs on her arms raised at the sensation of so much focused attention. “It’s the damndest thing, is all. Lady Luck must really like you, Osprey.”

“Lady Luck...?” Lori idly mused as she brought her tankard up to her mouth, sipping at the acrid drink. “I suppose you could say that.”

Unseen by the rest of the crew, Lady gently threaded her fingers through the strands of hair that escaped Lori’s normally neat and tidy bun. _Safe_ , the shade agreed contentedly in a voice that echoed with the steady rise and fall—the relentless surge—of the surf upon the sand. The shade inclined her head and pressed her lips to the crook of the pilot’s throat, lingering over the _ba-thump ba-thump_ of the woman’s pulse point.

Even as she took another drink from the tankard, Lori could feel the possessive scrape of teeth over her skin.

**

_She put her arms around him, saying O! My dear!_  
_She wept and she kiss'd him ten thousand times o'er._  
_O I am contented to lie by thy side._  
_And in a few moments, this lover she died._

Lori slowly woke to the sensation of chilly fingertips brushing over the Cupid’s bow of her mouth. She inhaled softly at the feeling, lips parting beneath Lady’s touch—just enough for the ghost to dip just enough into the living, wet heat of the pilot’s mouth to trace the upper edges of Lori’s teeth.

“…is this supposed to be my reward for getting rid of Myers for you?” the pilot asked tiredly, not bothering to open her eyes since all she wanted to do was go back to sleep. Perhaps Lady would leave her be, and Lori could at least get an hour or two more of rest before having to report to the hangar bay for her shift.

 _No_ , the ghost replied, shifting her too-cold touch so that she could settle a hand over the fragile skin of Lori’s throat.

Realizing that sleep would be a long time in coming now, Lori quietly sighed and finally opened her eyes to look up into the mismatched pair floating above her bed. Lady hovered over the bed, features stunningly beautiful for the moment; it wouldn’t last—it never did—but Lori took the moment to actually _look_ , trying to understand why certain of Lady’s features, despite the fact that the shade could pick and choose what she looked like, made something _ache_ within her chest with the familiarity of it all.

“How did you die, Lady?” Lori eventually asked, figuring that—perhaps—she could use the reward that Lady promised to gain answers from the normally circumspect and close-mouthed spirit.

Lady paused for a moment and tightened her hold over Lori’s neck, fingers flexing warningly. Eventually, however, the shade answered: _Love._

“And why do you haunt me, Lady?” the fighter pilot continued in a whisper, knowing full well that she was treading on thin ice, but—wanting, desperately, to finally _understand_. Why? Why me? Why now? _Why_?

 _Love_ , Lady replied as her features twisted with something both horrible and terrifying, with the type of love that could shatter worlds and outlast the universe. Lori’s eyes widened in fear, in sudden realization, in _knowledge_ \--and Lady caught her mouth in an icy kiss.

_My jolly sailor bold. Mine. My Lori._

**

_And all in the churchyard these two were laid,_  
_And a stone for remembrance was laid on her grave,_  
_My joys are all ended, my pleasures are fled,_  
_This grave that I lie in is my new married bed._

This story began, as so many stories do, between a poor boy and a pretty girl.

He was an orphan and had no prospects, no future—honestly, no hope. She was from a merchant family, young and vivacious and had her whole life ahead of her. Rich suitors came around in an attempt to court her, but she never looked their way.

Always, always: her gaze was turned towards the sea.

*

The poor boy and pretty girl married in secret, the ceremony hidden from her family, and he soon after left her to board a ship that was destined for China and India and all of the rich ports along the way—hired on as a sailor and determined to work his way upwards amongst the crew. The poor boy wanted to be rich to provide for the pretty girl, his new wife, and the family that they would eventually have.

He boarded the ship, filled with hope for the future.

One year later, the pretty girl received a condolence letter from the ship’s captain.

One year and one day after her wedding vows, the pretty girl took that last, permanent step off of the Widow’s Walk of her family home, falling down… down… down… towards the hungry surf below. _I’ll fly_ , the young widow thought as she spread her arms wide, vibrantly red skirts flapping in the wind behind her. _I’ll fly until I can find my jolly sailor bold once more._

One day after receiving the letter that broke her heart, the pretty young widow died.

Five hundred and sixty-three years after dying, the pretty young widow—now a shade that haunted ship after ship, those that sailed both sea and stars—finally found her sailor again.

::fin::


End file.
